Gluten is a protein found in food products that most people consume on a daily basis such as products containing wheat and rye. I have three friends who are ‘unable’ to eat gluten because of the side effects it has on them when being digested including: stomach pain, fatigue, diarrhea, and bloating. Nearly 18 million people have been diagnosed with gluten intolerance. After coming across a few articles, I was uncertain whether this idea was logical, and whether or not it was merely a myth.
According to a recent poll 30% of adults say they would like to lower the amount of gluten they consume. A recent study shows that they may be wasting their time by doing so. A group of gastroenterologists from the University of Spedali Civili of Brescia in Italy gathered 35 people who have been diagnosed 
a gluten intolerance and who had volunteered to be in the study. One of the pre-requisites of the volunteers was that they were on a gluten free diet for at least six months before hand. The volunteers were given bags of flour labeled A and B, one containing gluten and one that was gluten free, thus making it a double blind experiment. The researchers had them sprinkle one type of flour over pasta or soup once a day for ten straight days. They then had 14 days of their normal diet of not consuming gluten, and then repeated the process with the other flour they were given. They had to record how they felt through out the whole process and whether or not they experienced any symptoms from the flour by rating their symptoms from a scale of 1(no symptoms)-7(severe symptoms). The volunteers then had to guess which of the bags contained the flour with gluten. If they guessed correctly, they were diagnosed with having gluten intolerance. Based off of the results only 12 of the 35 people actually diagnosed as having intolerance to gluten. The 17 other subjects either guessed the wrong flour or had no symptoms at all. The man rating of effects from the gluten was a three, indicating that very few experienced extreme symptoms.
The issue with the study above is the use of volunteers. With any experiment or observation that uses volunteers there will always be a response bias. For example someone may be more likely to volunteer for a study they feel strongly about than one they do not care much about. The sample needed to be randomized along with the double blind in order to fail to reject the hypothesis. It was not specified the male to female ratio, but this may have affected the results. Also using a study of this size makes it extremely hard to acquire evidence strong enough to affect the outlook on this controversial topic.
Based off of the study I have concluded that there are people who do actually have gluten intolerance and it is not a myth because it is clear certain people experience similar symptoms after ingesting gluten. They study also suggests that there are up to two-thirds of the population who may be falsely diagnosed.
http://authoritynutrition.com/6-shocking-reasons-why-gluten-is-bad/
This is an interesting topic because I feel like being gluten free is the new trend. It is possible I never knew about gluten intolerance when I was younger because I was too young to notice it, but it seems there are more and more people today who have declared themselves gluten free. This article discusses the basics about the “gluten-free market trend”. It states that the gluten-free trend is indeed a new thing. Some people have celiac disease which means they have an intolerance to gluten, but 15% of people do it simply for the health benefits. The article explains that gluten-free sales “have doubled in the last 5 years and are expected to double again in the next 3 years to $5.5 billion by 2015.”